Daily Column: Going, Going, Gone?

It was tucked away amid a page of one paragraph notes. Atop the page: “Trends, movies, and books we’re talking about this month.” (see National Geographic Traveler, May/June 2008, p.30)

The “book” was titled Vanishing America: The End of Main Street. The book was described as offering “a provocative portrait of the silent emptiness that has descended upon vanishing small communities.”

The terse response from Andrew Nelson in National Geographic: “Texture, variety, human scale – these are what we stand to lose when these places disappear. Consider it a call to arms.”

Some 56 pages later in the same issue was another response, albeit unconnected and indirect.

It was sub-titled “Age-old traditions and contemporary joie de vivre enliven the streets of artsy Arles.”

Over two pages Raphael Kadushin takes the reader on a delightful walk through the streets of this five-figure city (population 52,600) near the southern coast of France. It is a story of a town that has fought off the threat of “silent emptiness” since the days of Julius Caesar and reached its peak of influence in the 4th and 5th centuries. And it was the place where Vincent van Gogh painted in 1888-1889.

Kadushin writes:

“In fact the city was born to be painted, and the Dutchman captured its sensual beauty fully, in the explosion of light and color that seems to radiate off his canvases. And nothing much has changed since his prolific stay. Often called the spiritual capital of Provence, Arles is still languidly holding its pose for the artists and art-lovers who continue to pass through, drawn by its ancient ruins and the city’s soft, timeless palette: the green leafy squares, the candy-colored shutters of the 18th-century stone manors, and the vaulting blue sky.”

A few samples of Kadushin’s walking tour through a city that has heard its own “call to arms:”

“Begin your walk of Arles’s compact old town in the anchoring square cum alfresco drawing room that characterizes most Provencal towns. In Arles, that meeting place is called the Place du Forum, which started life as part of the old Roman forum, when Julius Caesar established a colony here. The Café Van Gogh, one of the most tourist-happy cafés on the square, has been repainted sunflower yellow, to approximate its glowing likeness in an Gogh’s painting . . .”

“. . . head down the street to Les Arénes…a first-century Roman amphitheater that used to host gladiator games. Now it stages both summer bullfights and bull games.”

“. . . stroll south past the Théāter Antique, a first-century B.C. ruin marked by two tenacious, still standing Corinthian columns, and the sublime setting for summer concerts and an annual photography festival.

“. . . If it’s Saturday morning or the first Wednesday of the month, head to the southern entrance of the park and the outdoor market . . . the best, bulging one-stop showcase of Provencal produce and artistry.”

And the walk, like the life of 2000-year-old Arles, goes on.

(To read the entire article, "A Walk in Provence," see National Geographic Traveler, May/June 2008, p. 86)